In the dying days of the Roman republic, Military Tribune Marcus Fabius Aquila of the VIIth Legion drops a silver coin on the ramparts of Cado's Burg, a hilltop fortress in south west Britannia. What is he doing there - a Roman soldier - eighty years before Britannia is invaded by the troops of the Emperor Claudius? In 1966, some two thousand years later, the coin is discovered by Lynette Mason, a seventeen year old girl volunteering on an archaeological excavation during her summer holidays. Lynette becomes involved with a postgraduate student on the dig. It is an encounter that changes her life forever. Lynette's coin has the potential to rewrite the history of Britain. When it is brought to the attention of a professor at Lynette's local university, the race is on to find the coin and reap the academic rewards. But the person who wants it most of all is someone Lynette hoped she would never see again in her life.